I've a bunch of beautiful fish that I want pictures of, but I can't get a good picture out of my camera. Does anyone have a few tips on taking pictures of fish inside of a fish tank with a digital camera?
I have a Panasonic DMC-FX8 if anyone has specific tips with that. Lighting is pretty good, my problem is that the picture gets blurry. I think this might have to do w/ the glass, but for some reason I'm not getting any details inside of the tank. Hi.
-If you can, use a separate flash light and not the one on the camera,to avoid the reflex of it in the glass.
-Use the flash light at 90 degrees ,respect to your position in front the glass .(on a side of the subject).
- Better if the lights are 2 ,one for each side of the subject.
-If you can't use flash light,use halogen light,positioned at the same angle(90 degrees respect to your position).
.In such a case remember to set the white balance on that kind of light.
-Put,all around the faces of the aquarium(but not to the front glass) a black drapery,or cardboard,to avoid parasite reflexes from other lights.
-To avoid the reflex of your image in the front glass,hide yourself and the camera beside the same black drapery,having only the lens passing through it.
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-Don't use the auto focus system.Perhaps,it's focusing the front glass of the aquarium....Therefore use the manual focus.
-To avoid to have to "follow" the subject around the whole acuarium(and to be able to focus it easier),separate the fish from the others,with a sheet of glass close enough to the front glass of the acuarium.The fish will have to stay in this narrow space,for the time of the shot.
-Be sure,before to start working, to clean well the inside and outside part of the front glass of the fish tank...
-"looks like an hard work,but it's easy to do,and the results enough good". Make sure the flash is off so you don't get the glare from the glass and make sure the lighting in the room is good...that's all I know, besides don't move the camera while taking the picture. :) You must make sure the tank is clear enough to see. put them in a little fish bowl and where they have less room to move a take a pic buy a waterproof casing for you camera and put ur camera into the fish tank on timer mode. press the shutter button and wait for the timer to beep. have fun with lots of surprises!! Your Panasonic DMC-FX8 is one of the better ones on the market in that class of camera. The Leica lens is only the beginning. That said, since it is a digital, you don't have to do any elaborate lighting with external flash units.
You may have some work lights around the house to supply the light, if not, for under $40 you can pick some up at Home Depot or Lowe's. Just move the lights around until the fish and their environment looks good to you, choose the "Halogen" setting on your camera menu and shoot.
I would suggest that you do this at night so you don't get reflections of the room in the glass. ok, I have fish too. the glass is not the problem, the problem is focus.
what you want to do if to go into modes and select "macro" or "close up". what this does as the name suggests is it focuses on the image that are close to the lenses as suppose to the images farther away from the lenses. in this mode you will get crystal clear pictures from up close.
note that if your fish are fast swimmers, they will not come looking that clear. so you have to catch them in a stance where they aren't swimming.
and that's it, pretty much. | 